Podcasting
It’s Friday and I’m sitting here trying to provide a topic for today’s blog. Now this is usually the point where you don’t hear from me for six months while I throw in the soiled blog towel and go off to write something else. But today is different. I’m going to try and feel the burn and work through my blog-block.
Aha I’ve got it.
This is a subject close to my heart and drives my friends mad. The subject is – dee ter dee dee ter dee dee: Podcasting.
Yep I love it, I really do.
In fact I’ve talked about the joy of casting my pods at least once before in this blog, but today I’m going to do it again. You see the joy of podcasting is the utter freedom to express ones self. It isn’t owned by any large corporation or censored by a regulatory authority like Ofcom. It simply exists in the cultural underground as probably the only source of free speech in this country.
Of course it isn’t totally free from rules, after all a podcasters must still obey the law of the land. They should avoid libelling people, being cruel or inciting hatred. But these are simply the tenets of a civilised society, so can’t really be judged as great restrictions on creativity or as a form of censorship.
Now here is something interesting. I’ve never heard a podcast which doesn’t obey these rules. We often sail close to the wind as do podcasts such as ‘The Collings and Herrin’ Podcast’, who like us swear and make jokes about attitudes and subjects considered taboo. It goes without saying that none of this material would ever be acceptable on a licenced terrestrial broadcaster. But that’s the point. There has to be some outlet for people to express their views or display their talents without being drowned out by the noise of received opinions and bland morality being texted or Emailed into every television program and newspaper in the land.
Do we really care that Mr Meek from Hull thinks that Gordon Brown is doing a good job or that Mrs Dull from Eastbourne doesn’t like wind turbines: she read somewhere that bits of ice can fall off them and cut your head off? These are unimportant views. They are invalidated by the fact that in our society a man can read an opinion in his tabloid newspaper in the morning and text it to the six O’clock news as his own that evening.
How many times have you heard people complaining about immigration? Do you think any of those people has researched the facts? No they haven’t.
What they have done is opened up their Daily Mail and been fed a list of spurious statistics which support that newspapers agenda. They then walk abroad; passing them on like a fact spurting Typhiod Mary.
Let me say now that I have researched the facts and they say that immigration is of great economic benefit to the country.
Hmm I seem to have drifted off into some kind of socialist rant. How very strange, please forgive me.
Anyway where was I, ah yes, I love it. I love the process of making something out of nothing, just sitting in a room with two friends chattering on and making each other laugh. It’s not broadcasting it’s podcasting. Grab a microphone and join in.
Yes I did rather let that post get away from me.
